


Pushing Platonic

by Andsoshewrites



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Drunkenness, Friendship, Gen, Minor Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:11:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9230336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andsoshewrites/pseuds/Andsoshewrites
Summary: Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov meet in 2006 at the European Figure Skating Championship.This much is true.Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov /meet/ in 2010 at the Vancouver Olympics.This much is also true.(A detailed look at Chris and Victor's friendship over the years.)





	1. Chris N Vic Get Arrested

**Author's Note:**

> I'll start this off completely honestly: this fic is basically a love letter to Chris and Victor's friendship. It's been affectionately dubbed by me and Vir 'Chris N Vic', so that's what you'll see me referring it to across the course of this fic (mainly in the notes).
> 
> So, this fic is pretty much completely influenced by the thoughts and ideas of my dear friend Vir as well, so check her out at her main tumblr at glingulata.tumblr.com or on her yoi tumblr at plzetsky.tumblr.com. This fic probably wouldn't exist without her! (As for me, you can find me at guccimetti.tumblr.com)
> 
> Chris and Victor's friendship is really so interesting, and I really love it, so I wrote this whole multi-chaptered fic about it. There'll be multiple styles of writing in this fic (one chapter, for example, is going to consist of texts), and I've already got about 6k words written down for it, and I'm not done yet!
> 
> Ultimately, I've been shook ever since Chris and Victor had that little exchange at the pool in Barcelona. "I was hoping to go skinny dipping" "Don't let me stop you; I'll even take pictures!" Like! You /know/ there's an /interesting/ history behind friends that act like that with each other--you /know/ it.
> 
> This first chapter focuses on how Chris and Victor met, which me and Vir determined to be by Victor getting him and Chris arrested in Vancouver.
> 
> (Chris and Victor talk to each other in English in this chapter because Chris isn't aware that Victor speaks French)

Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov meet in 2006 at the European Figure Skating Championship. Victor wins gold; Chris hadn’t quite made it to the competition, sitting in the audience and watching with rapt, wide eyes. Chris calls out to Victor, and Victor throws him a rose. From then on, they see each other at various skating competitions but never really talk.

This much is true.

Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov _meet_ in 2010 at the Vancouver Olympics.

This much is also true.

-

**Late February, 2010**

Victor doesn’t quite know how it happened; someone on the Canadian hockey team’s brother knows this _guy_ who knows _another_ guy, and now, somehow, he’s part of the gaggle of Olympians who are having a party at a house just outside the Olympic Village. Victor is 21, his hair freshly snipped for his first Olympic debut in which he’s ‘ _not a child_ ,’ as Yakov puts it; he’s had just a few drinks too many and is slumped over a particularly tan couch. The music is still as loud as it was when he arrived and there are hardly fewer people up and dancing than there were at the beginning of the night, but Victor still feels that nothing would be better than going back to his room in the Olympic Village and getting some sleep. Pulling out his phone, Victor notices that he can’t really see clearly. _Fuck_.

Victor presses somewhat blindly at the buttons on his phone for a bit, trying to remember how to make a call and trying to think of _who_ , even, to call. Yakov seems like the most likely to actually come and get him, but he definitely wouldn’t be happy about it. It occurs to Victor, suddenly, that he doesn’t know what the Canadian number for the police is. A couple next to him on the particularly tan couch has been making out for the past five minutes or so, and while they’ve been losing their clothes at a quickening pace, they still have their team jackets on, proudly bearing their maple leaves. He calls out to them, “Hey,” and when they don’t answer, he keeps saying it louder and louder until they turn and look at him. “What’s the number for the police here?” Victor asks, thinking long and hard about each word of English he says.

“911,” one of the two athletes answers him, and then, they go back to kissing. With some effort, Victor enters the number into his phone.

“911, what’s your emergency?” a trained voice on the other end of the line answers in a practiced, precise phrase and tone.

“Hi, um,” Victor thinks, trying to convert Russian into English quicker than his drink-fuddled brain will allow, “there’s, um, a party here. It’s…loud?” It seems like a valid complaint for a party.

“Okay, we can get them to keep it down. Where is this party?” Victor laughs.

“I don’t know. We’re near the Olympic Village.” Victor hangs up the phone and leans back against the couch. He hopes the police will pick him up once they get there; he doesn’t know much about Canadian police. Though, the truth is that he’s never tried to get Russian police to take him home after a night of drinking either.

Victor distances himself from the music and voices and lets his eyes fall closed. He might have managed to fall asleep had someone not picked this exact moment to notice him and call out his name. “Victor Nikiforov!” someone calls, and it sounds familiar.

Before Victor has a chance to look up and see who’s calling for him, someone places themself rather soundly in his lap; focusing in front of him, Victor sees that beyond the blur of red and white, it’s Christophe Giacometti, very proudly wearing his Switzerland jacket. “I didn’t know _you_ were here,” Chris says, shifting so he’s halfway facing Victor.

“ _I_ barely know I’m here,” Victor says without thinking about it, and he and Chris start laughing, leaning all over each other and watching the world spin through the lens of alcohol. Chris shifts a little, settling himself even more against Victor.

Victor is, perhaps, a little more drunk than he thinks he is because he pulls Chris towards him and starts kissing him. No one really notices or cares, and the somewhat sloppy kisses turn into an even sloppier make-out session. This is how Victor spends the rest of his time waiting for the police—a time longer than it might have been if Victor had given them an address rather than a vague location.

Someone answers the knock on the door Victor doesn’t hear, but not many people notice until there’s a shout of, “Excuse me, everyone!” Chris and Victor break away from each other to look up at the police officer standing in the doorway. She starts talking about noise ordinances and how loud the party is—perhaps blatantly ignoring the 17-year-old American skier very obviously dumping his drink into a fake potted plant—, but neither Chris nor Victor are paying much attention.

“Who called the police?” Chris asks in a whisper, breathing against Victor’s lips and sending shivers down his spine. Victor responds by very roughly shoving him off his lap.

Here’s the thing: Victor has never claimed to be an exceptionally tactful person, and alcohol does nothing other than make this even more true. To 21-year-old intoxicated Victor, getting arrested seems like the best plan for getting taken home, and the best plan for getting arrested seems like starting a fight, and the best plan for starting a fight seems like starting it with the person right in front of him. Chris looks comically dazed, face-up on the floor with wide, surprised eyes; Victor hops on top of him, messily and halfheartedly shoving and hitting at him, trying to get the police officer’s attention without actually hurting Chris. Chris shoves back at him, equally as messy and uncoordinated.

Victor’s plan works, and before either of them _actually_ get hurt, he and Chris are being pulled away from each other. “Hey, officer, I—” Victor starts, and then he’s being handcuffed. Victor blinks very deliberately a few times, trying to piece together what’s happening.

 _Being arrested involves being handcuffed_ , he tells himself. _Yeah, but. I’m handcuffed_ , he also tells himself. The room has gone very still and quiet around them.

“Alright, listen you two, these handcuffs are just restraints, and I’m not actively arresting either of you— _yet_. How about we come outside and talk this out after I talk to whoever’s the organizer of this party?” the officer says to the two of them. Of course, that won’t do for Victor, who’s _planning_ on getting arrested and doesn’t _have_ anything he needs to talk out.

Victor makes a few aborted motions with his hands, trying to figure out what to do to escalate the situation now that he’s restrained. “No,” Victor starts, and the restraint of his hands is really not doing anything for his balance while he’s drunk—figure skater or not—, and he feels himself starting to fall. Victor purposefully knocks his shoulder into Chris on the way down, causing him to go toppling over with him.

“What’s your problem with me, Victor?” Chris asks, kicking at Victor’s shin without much fire.

“Alright, alright, _quit it_ ,” the police officer says, separating them and pulling them to their feet. Victor immediately kicks at Chris once he’s back up, and the police officer yells at them again and tries to put herself between them, only to have Victor kick at Chris by moving his leg around her. She lets out a longsuffering sigh. She pushes at both of them a bit roughly. “Come on, you’re under arrest. I’ll read you your rights at the car.” She calls out to everyone else at the party, “I’m going to call to have another officer come and talk to the organizer of this party, but if everything checks out, you should really just have to promise to keep it down!” Victor can feel Chris’s glare on him without even turning his head.

Even days later (and sober), Victor doesn’t know what happens with the party.  Even the ride to the police station becomes foggy and distant in Victor’s mind after the fact: it’s mainly his and Chris’s time spent in jail that he remembers after the alcohol has buzzed its way out of his blood. He and Chris are put in separate holding cells, across from each other. Chris is alternating between glaring at him and sending him a sad, pouty gaze reminiscent of a scolded puppy.

“What?” Victor asks, giggling. He did it!

“What was that about?” Chris asks, not finding it as funny as Victor does.

“I was tired and wanted to go home, so I called the police.”

“ _You_ called the police?” Chris asks. Victor nods. Chris seems to think about it for a bit before he seems to understand, his drunken brain coming to the same conclusion as Victor’s had. Then, he starts laughing too, causing Victor to laugh harder. “Why me, then?”

“You were there!” Victor says, and he and Chris dissolve into giggles. “Was it not a good plan?” Victor asks.

“No!” Chris says. A few minutes later, the same police officer who had arrested them comes around the corner and tells them they can make their phone calls.

“Could you not just take me home?” Victor asks. Chris snickers louder.

“I’m afraid I can’t, _Mr. Nikiforov_ ,” the officer says, apparently connecting their names to their faces now, “but what I _can_ do is let you two go quietly and go back to being Olympians. That is, unless either of you have any objections.” Victor shakes his head a few times—which he thinks might _actually_ be rattling his brain as he quickly slows his movements—, and Chris tells the officer no through giggles.

Victor ends up having to call Yakov to come pick him up anyway, despite his elaborate plan. Naturally, Yakov is not very thrilled at having to pick up his charge from jail; though, Chris’s coach is a bit more jovial about it—but not to a point beyond reprimanding. While they wait for their coaches to come and get them, Chris and Victor talk back and forth from their cells about figure skating and the Olympics and Vancouver and alcohol and sex. By the time that Chris’s coach gets there (first—Yakov is probably deliberately being slow to be spiteful), Chris and Victor are having a very lively discussion about the ideal length of hair for hair pulling during sex. The officer who’s been babysitting them for the past two hours or so interrupts their conversation with a brisk, “Giacometti.” She opens Chris’s cell and says, “Your ride’s here.” Chris stands up and blows a kiss at Victor.

“Hey, Chris,” Victor calls.

“Yes?”

“This isn’t the last I’ll be seeing of you, is it?”

Chris laughs. “Vic,” Chris says, and while Victor has never been called ‘Vic’ is his _life_ before this point and can’t exactly tell how he likes the shortening, the nickname sounds right on Chris’s mouth, “this is just the first of you’ll be seeing of me!” It doesn’t exactly fit right, some mistranslation made in alcohol and fatigue. Victor thinks he understands it better that way.

Victor has a feeling that Christophe Giacometti has just become his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points headcanons: 12-year-old JJ had tickets to a late-night thing for meeting Chris and Victor but never actually got to meet them because they were. In jail. And /that's/ why JJ fucking resents them.


	2. "what kind of fucking roommate takes ur fucking dick pics for u"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> C'est très malheureux que je ne pouvais pas écrire les conversations de Chris et Victor en français. Normalement, quand j'ai le français dans une fic, je l'écris, mais c'est une fic anglaise, et mes lecteurs seraient confus.
> 
> (It's very unfortunate that I couldn't write Chris and Victor's conversations in French. Normally, when I have French in a fic, I write it, but this is an English fic, and my readers would be confused.)
> 
> Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about dick pics. Let alone dick pics in the year 2011.
> 
> This chapter follows the last one chronologically, but not all of them will be like that!!! (even though I think the next one does too)
> 
> The house that I describe for Chris isn't like the little tiny apartment we see him in in ep 11, but let's say that either a. Chris has multiple houses b. Chris has moved since 2011. Also, yes, I headcanon Chris as a rich kid. He gives off that air
> 
> Filicia "Fifi" Fleur Giacometti = Chris's cat (the same as the cat we see in ep 11; she's 11 in ep 11 and 5 here in this chapter)
> 
> Bruiser = Victor's poodle (the show says he's had poodles for a long ass time, but it doesn't say how long he's had Makkachin, so I say that Makkachin comes along after Bruiser, who's named after Elle Woods's dog in Legally Blonde)
> 
> Stéphanie "Stépha" Giacometti = Chris's older sister (~two years older!!!)
> 
> Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this chapter, enjoy!

**Mid June, 2011**

“Still ignoring calls from Yakov?” Chris asks—in French, different from the messy, drunken English the two had spoken to each other in Vancouver, as he’s discovered that Victor speaks the language—something that Victor had quite offhandedly told him one day after a competition, the two of them sprawled out on a bed together, exhausted and sore in their feet. Victor’s phone has been buzzing almost nonstop since his arrival in Switzerland; he’s gotten to half-hoping that Fifi will knock a glass of water onto it or Bruiser will bury it in the backyard.

Victor stretches, pool water dripping from his hair onto his shoulders, his hands and wrists down his arms, his chest down his waist, his waist onto the floor. He places his wet feet onto Chris’s wet lap. “I think he forgets sometimes that I’m 22 and can make my own decisions.” Chris shrugs and rolls his shoulders back.

Like Chris and Victor’s decision to sit on the floor wet in their swim trunks after going for a swim in Chris’s neighborhood pool, Victor’s decision to come live with Chris during the off-season was spontaneous and a bit strange. He had decided that spending a month or so living with Chris sounded fun. As for dropping everything and flying to Switzerland without a word to anyone else—well, Victor has always been a champion of surprise. His reasoning for this is something he doesn’t like to analyze.

Chris, for his part, had picked Victor up from the airport without question.

Victor very deliberately presses his feet against Chris’s crotch before pulling them away and standing up. “I’m gonna go take a shower and wash the chlorine out of my hair.”

“Enjoy yourself!” Chris calls out. Victor throws his swim trunks at him.

Chris’s house is a gift from his parents, and while it isn’t exceedingly large, it does give off an air of affluence. The furniture is sleek and expensive, the appliances are new, and (more individual to Chris) there’s a series of extravagant, ornate cat tunnels and hammocks winding around the house for Fifi, who picks and chooses which of them and which _parts_ of them she uses. Bruiser had tried to chew one on his first day here; though, Fifi had popped him firmly on the nose the moment he had tried it, and that had been the end of it. The neighborhood pool is a very walkable distance from Chris’s house, which both he and Victor are very thankful for in the nearly-summer weather.

The _shower_ in Chris’s house is another point of interest: Victor has used numerous showers in numerous places in his life, but the one in Chris’s house is easily his favorite. Chris teases him (“Water pressure, _of course_ that’s why you spend so long under the warm, warm water, Victor.”) for taking any possible opportunity to shower, but, really, the water pressure _is_ amazing, and Victor didn’t grow up with showers that have soothing blue lights and fifteen different nozzle settings like a certain born rich Swiss figure skater he knows. It’s still strange to him when he overhears Chris on the phone with his sister talking about how, “I thought _Papa_ only gave him 10,000 Francs,” and, “He changed his mind, Stépha: he’s giving him 30,000,” even though _he’s_ increasingly reaching a point at which he can bat his eyes at and toss around such amounts too.

Victor feels pleasantly clean getting out of the shower; he towels himself dry, contemplating using the blow-dryer on his hair and deciding not to. He steps out of the bathroom wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist, finding that Chris isn’t sitting on the living room floor anymore. Victor had left his phone charging in the kitchen—attached to the living room—and finds Fifi still lounging comfortably next to it as she had been before he had gotten in the shower like she just might take up his offer on breaking it. When he unlocks it, he finds a notification from Grindr (as well as several missed messages from Yakov and various others [but mostly Yakov], but none of those really capture his attention).

 _dick pics bb? ;)_ , the message reads. Victor shrugs and switches to his phone’s camera, tugging down his towel a little.

Victor has taken all of two dick pics when he hears a snort. He turns to look and finds Chris leaning against the doorway in the living room, now slumped over in full laughter. “What?” Victor asks, very purposefully not pulling up his towel: pulling it up would be an admission of guilt.

“That is _not_ how you take a dick pic,” Chris says, “also, _you’re taking dick pics in my kitchen_. That’s pretty funny, Victor!”

“Is it a big deal?” Victor asks. Chris laughs again before saying no.

He walks into the kitchen and around to Victor’s side, saying, “You’re not holding your wrist right, and, really, a dick pic while you’re in a towel?”

“You wanna take them for me?” Victor asks, bumping Chris with his hip.

“Sure,” Chris says through laughter, “but I have to ask you to get your dick away from Fifi—she has very delicate sensibilities.” Victor rolls his eyes.

“She lives with you, doesn’t she?” He goes along with Chris to the bathroom anyway.

Chris and Victor spend the next half an hour in the bathroom together, Chris telling Victor, “Spread your legs _this_ way,” and “You’ve gotta be hard for this pose—it just doesn’t _work_ otherwise; give yourself a few strokes.”

“Why don’t _you_ give me a few strokes?” Victor asks, shifting his hips. Chris hums and takes a few more pictures.

“Talk to me about it later, tiger,” Chris says, “I take dick pics very seriously.”

Chris moves around the room some more, making more suggestions and taking pictures from different angles. He slows his finger taps after a while, saying, “I think you’re good on the dick pics for whoever it is you’re sexting,” before handing Victor’s phone back.

“They’re just for Grindr,” Victor says. Chris nods at him.

“Respectable enough. Now, move, I have to pee.”

 **dudeinthemood90 [3:14 PM]:** dick pics bb? ;)  
**victor-n [3:58 PM]:** (image attached) (image attached) (image attached)  
**dudeinthemood90 [4:05 PM]:** oooooohhhh who took these pics 4 u??? ;)))) would they wanna join in???  
**victor-n [4:06 PM]:** my roommate Chris! idk I’d have to ask him **  
dudeinthemood90 [4:10 PM]:** what kind of fucking roommate takes ur fucking dick pics for u

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points headcanons: Victor will sext someone anywhere at anytime. it's a problem. (on the flipside yūri is terrible at sexting, so rip)
> 
> shout out to dudeinthemood90, whoever the fuc u are :,)


	3. A Series of Thirst Texts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, alright, I know what you're saying. "Madison, why did it take you so long to get a chapter of texts out?" /characterization/, my friends
> 
> emojis don't work on ao3 and I am screaming and in hell. I had to enter all of these emojis as images.
> 
> The next few chapters may be slower to come out because they're a bit longer and I have to figure out a few things with them!!!
> 
> (chris mentions josef in this chapter--that's his coach!!!)
> 
> (all times appear as victor's time, whatever timezone he happens to be in. chris and victor's names are shown as the other's contact name for them)

**Early/Mid December, 2015 to Early December, 2016**

**vic [12:32 AM]:** I’M IN KOOVE  
**vic [12:32 AM]:** ooooOOOHHH MY GOS I wanna suck him  
**vic [12:33 AM]:** wait sjiit u don’t have ur phine  
**vic [12:33 AM]:** nice ass btw

 

 **chris [8:34 AM]:** I wanted to make sure you weren’t dead or hijacking Yūri’s flight back to Japan  
**chris [8:34 AM]:** you were pretty drunk last night!  
**chris [8:35 AM]:** then again so was I  
**vic [8:40 AM]:** do u even know what time it is….  
**vic [8:40 AM]:** how are you not hung over  
**chris [8:41 AM]:** I am! Josef hauled me out of bed about an hour ago  
**chris [8:41 AM]:** so I figured who better to join me in my misery than lover boy himself  
**vic [8:42 AM]:** come to my hotel room and smother me  
**vic [8:42 AM]:** wait no. then I won’t get to see Yūri again  
**chris [8:43 AM]:** I don’t know if ur messy drunk knight in shining armor would appreciate it if I smothered u  
**vic [8:47 AM]:** I have to see him again

 

 **vic [2:14 PM]:** I am plagued at night by images of black hair and brown eyes  
**vic [2:14 PM]:** flushed cheeks  
**vic [2:14 PM]:** a loosened tie  
**vic [2:14 PM]:** the most BEAUTIFUL man in the WORLD   
**vic [2:14 PM]:**  
**chris [2:15 PM]:** and a stripper pole?  
**vic [2:15 PM]:** YES

 

 **vic [1:27 PM]:** Mila brought her boyfriend to the rink again  
**vic [1:27 PM]:** is it bad to be jealous of teenagers?  
**chris [1:36 PM]:** yes  
**chris [1:36 PM]:** also I’m at the rink too; replies might be slow  
**vic [1:40 PM]:** yakov just yelled at them so Mila’s bf just kissed her on the nose before he left  
**vic [1:40 PM]:** don’t get me wrong I’d take off a chunk of his flesh with my skate given the chance  
**vic [1:41 PM]:** he reminds me of that one guy I dated about five years back who was dating like three other people  
**vic [1:41 PM]:** but anyway  
**vic [1:42 PM]:** imagine getting nose kisses from /Yūri Katsuki/  
**vic [1:44 PM]:** I did more research on him the other day  
**vic [1:44 PM]:** apparently he’s from Hasetsu, Japan and has an older sister named Mari  
**chris [2:20 PM]: ******

  
  
**vic [12:38 AM]:** chris  
**vic [12:38 AM]:** christophe  
**vic [12:38 AM]:** christophe giacometti  
**vic [12:39 AM]:** Christophe Giacometti, my dearest best friend of six years  
**chris [12:40 AM]:** yes??   
**vic [12:40 AM]:** I’m in Japan right now  
**chris [12:40 AM]:** yūri katsuki???  
**vic [12:41 AM]:** expected him to jump me as soon as he saw me. not the case

 

 **vic [12:08 AM]:** WHEN will he stretch this ASS  
**vic [12:08 AM]:** i’m DYING  
**chris [12:09 AM]:** u still haven’t fucked???  
**vic [12:10 AM]:** NO!  
**vic [12:10 AM]:** he’s so shy  
**vic [12:10 AM]:** he doesn’t even seem to know what to do when I’m around  
**chris [12:11 AM]:** he knew what to do at the gpf banquet  ****  
**vic [12:11 AM]:** I KNOW CHRIS I WANT THAT POLE TO BE MY /DICK/  
**vic [12:11 AM]:** I AM JEALOUS OF A /POLE/  
**chris [12:12 AM]:** good fucks come to those who wait?

 

 **chris [8:27 PM]:** how was onsen on ice? ;)  
**vic [9:12 PM]:** I was jacking off when you sent me this and still had my pants on and it vibrated my thigh  
**vic [9:12 PM]:** so thanks chris  
**chris [9:14 PM]:** isn’t it like 9 PM in Japan???  
**vic [9:15 PM]:** it was urgent

 

 **vic [10:29 AM]:** how do you  
**vic [10:29 AM]:** very politely  
**vic [10:29 AM]:** ask someone to be the father of your children

 

 **chris [10:38 AM]:** how’s life???!!!  
**vic [10:40 AM]:**  
**chris [10:40 AM]:**  
**vic [10:41 AM]:** NO  
**vic [10:41 AM]:** just  
**vic [10:41 AM]:** ****  
**chris [10:41 AM]:**  someone’s got it bad!!!  
**vic [10:43 AM]:** I get to kiss him now!!!  
**vic [10:43 AM]:** I just did!!!  
**vic [10:43 AM]:** I can’t believe this!  
**vic [10:44 AM]:** my heart is beating so fast!  
**chris [10:44 AM]:** good on you, vic ****

**vic [1:59 AM]:** I want him in my life for the rest of my life  
**vic [1:59 AM]:** forever  
**vic [2:00 AM]:** as long as he’ll have me

 

 **vic [7:44 PM]:** CHRISTHISIAADISASTERYOYDOB’TUNDERSTSMD  
**chris [7:45 PM]:** didn’t you say u showed up at his house naked  
**vic [7:45 PM]:** YES  
**vic [7:45 PM]:** I JUST SHOWED UP  
**vic [7:45 PM]:** HE JUST WENT WITH IT  
**chris [7:46 PM]:** yeah….kinda feel bad for grabbing his ass now  
**vic [7:46 PM]:** THAT WAS NOWHERE /NEAR/ AS BAD, CHRIS  
**chris [7:50 PM]:** enjoy ur fiancé!!  
**vic [7:51 PM]:** MY DICJ  
**vic [7:51 PM]:** *DICK  
**vic [7:51 PM]:** WAS JUST OUTTHERE  
**vic [7:52 PM]:** THAT WAS THE FIRST IMPRESSION I LEFT ON KATSUKI YŪRI  
**chris [7:52 PM]:** not a terrible first impression  
**vic [7:52 PM]:** AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH  
**vic [7:53 PM]:** CHRIS  
**vic [7:53 PM]:** IN THE ARTICLES THEY WRITE AFTER MY DEATH  
**vic [7:53 PM]:** (OF COMPLETE AND UTTER MORTIFICATION)  
**vic [7:53 PM]:** DON’T LET THEM SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT YŪRI OR MAKKACHIN  
**chris [7:54 PM]:** well now I’m gonna bc u didn’t include me in that list  
**vic [7:54 PM]:** u just think this is so funny don’t u  
**chris [7:55 PM]:**  
**vic [7:55 PM]:**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus points headcanons: there are some very similar texts from yūri to phichit across the time period (although yūri texts like he's ~50 so they're. not EXACTLY the same)
> 
> formatting this chapter was hell


	4. Two Interviews That Made Victor's Life Varying Degrees More Difficult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! I had a plan to post this tomorrow, but my online AP Enivronmental Science teacher decided to give us a really ridiculous lab today that's due in a week, so I figured I'd work on that tomorrow instead of this, which is why I'm posting this at around 12:45 AM EST (I don't have school tomorrow, don't worry).
> 
> This one's a lot of fun and is longer than the past three chapters; I think you'll really enjoy it!
> 
> (Technically???? some of the emojis in this chapter don't exist during the year that I've put them in. also technically? fuck u)
> 
> I also want to thank everyone for their feedback on this work: it means a lot to me. I think we're all having a fun time with this one, huh?

**Late January, 2012**                

It’s not a secret or a scandal in the figure skating world that Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov are good friends. Some people are surprised by it, but it’s mostly become an accepted fact of the universe, like how Victor will almost surely win _this_ competition too, whatever said competition may be. It’s because of this that the two of them are sometimes asked for joint interviews, as they are today a few days after the European Championship, Victor winning gold and Chris winning silver.

Bundled up tightly for late January in England, Chris and Victor stand on a curb while an interviewer presents them with several cameras and a microphone, arms wrapped casually around each other. The interview setting is supposed to bring forth an air of casualness, but there isn’t a person there who isn’t shivering and wishing to go inside. They’ve been talking about figure skating mostly, Chris and Victor both talking about some of their plans for future competitions and making little jabs at and congratulating each other, all friendly and comfortable. An innocent, topical question is asked to Chris—about pre-competition traditions. He answers, “Oh, my sister makes me cookies sometimes. She recently altered her recipe to make them vegan for me.”

“Oh, you’re a vegan, Mr. Giacometti?”

Victor, without thinking about it, lets his expression slip into a slight frown.

(Dressed in pajamas for the late December weather instead of buck naked, scratching at his stomach in Chris’s kitchen, Victor opens up the refrigerator and then grabs rather roughly at the carton of soy milk, lifting it up in the air and squinting at it like he’s trying to detect some sort of treachery. He puts the soy milk back, next grabbing a box of butter and lifting it in a similar manner, seeing it also to be vegan. Victor, suddenly suspicious of all the food items in Chris’s house, pours himself a glass of orange juice, contented to see that it’s the same kind he remembers from his last time here. He sits at the kitchen table, taking tiny sips of his juice and tapping his fingernails against the wood, waiting for Chris to come down.

A few minutes after Victor sits down, Chris comes into the kitchen equally as not-naked, stretching his arms over his head and telling him good morning. Victor glares at him for several seconds for the purpose of being dramatic. “Chris,” Victor begins, wrapping both of his hands around his glass, “why don’t you have milk?”

“I do,” Chris says, not batting an eyelash at Victor’s tone as he shuffles through his refrigerator, “it’s soy.” Victor puts his face in his hands and thinks about knocking his glass over to be spiteful, a gesture imitative of Fifi.

“ _Why_ is it soy?”

“Because I’m a vegan, and I like soy milk best.”

Victor scrunches his brows together and curls his lip up a bit. He stares at Chris, who has now pulled out all the ingredients he wants to make his breakfast and shut the refrigerator. “Since _when_?” Victor asks, incredulous. Chris pauses for a moment, thinking.

“About two months ago.” Victor continues to stare at him in mounting disbelief. He switches his gaze back forward, taking another sip of his juice.)

“Oh, yes! I’ve been a vegan for several months now.”

“How do you incorporate veganism into an athlete’s diet?”

“It’s really not as hard as everyone makes it out to be,” Chris starts, going into a discussion about the presence of different types of nutrients in all sorts of foods and the benefits of dietary supplements, if the situation calls for it. Victor spaces out a bit, the small, distant frown still on his face.

Victor doesn’t remember or realize _what_ , exactly, his face looked like during this particular moment in the joint interview until the next morning when he wakes up to an article linked to him on Twitter with that face as its main picture. “Victor Nikiforov Shows a Surprising Amount of Insensitivity for Fellow Skater Christophe Giacometti”, the title reads.

The article outlines the joint interview, making sure to interrupt plain summarization with a photo of Victor’s slight frown stretching across the page before going _exactly_ into what the author thinks of it.

“This would be a lovely, informative interview segment,” the article reads, “if Nikiforov didn’t look like he’d prefer _anything_ over standing next to Giacometti in these moments. Giacometti and Nikiforov have claimed various times in the past few years to be friends, but Nikiforov certainly doesn’t seem to respect Giacometti’s personal choices judging by his facial expressions.”

Victor snorts.

_Don’t they know that Chris once put his cat on my face to wake me up when I passed out drunk and naked on his floor?_

Before Victor has a chance to think of a plan for dealing with the article, he gets a text from Chris.

 **chris** **[9:34 AM]:** /how/ could you disrespect me so? oh, I’ll never recover  
**********vic** **[9:35 AM]:** it’s funny how they think me making a face bc u DIDN’T TELL ME U WENT VEGAN B4 I CAME TO UR HOUSE is something notable w/ us  
**********chris** **[9:35 AM]:** true, mr. i don’t know how to take a nude. dw. i’ll save u ;)  
**********vic** **[9:36 AM]:** my hero

Within several hours, the article has been taken down, and Chris has made multiple posts in multiple languages explaining away Victor’s frown.

-

**Early December, 2012**

Chris and Victor are distinctively giggly-buzzed when they’re forcibly corralled for a (forgotten) joint interview, cameras, reporters, and microphones slightly crowding them as they lean all over each other, arms splayed around each other and squeezing. The questions are typical—mostly professional, some personal, some bordering on intrusive, some blatantly intrusive. Victor stumbles a little after leaning too far to the side after one question, and he can distantly see disaster on the horizon—a faraway car approaching too quick.

“Shouldn’t you be asking us about skating?” Chris, who hasn’t once stopped laughing since they were dragged out of the bar, asks after the question of whether or not he wears underwear during his routines arises.

Victor grabs at Chris’s ass, whispers in his ear, “I like it when you don’t.” Chris doubles over with laughter, and Victor keeps his arm around his waist, smiling, very proud of himself. As Chris stands back up again, there’s a very bright camera flash and yet more questions, all from people who certainly didn’t miss that last moment.

One reporter asks, rather suddenly, “Are you gay?” and another member of the interviewing crew turns to look at them, mouth slightly agape, growing horror on their face.

Chris and Victor look at each other at the same time—in unison—and grin, the same thought coming to their heads at the same time.

“Which one of us?” they ask together, completely dissolving into laughter. To the side, both Chris and Victor’s PR teams are hastily trying to cut the interview off and likely forcibly drag their two charges back to their hotel rooms, but they don’t manage it before the next question comes.

“Both of you—together,” the same person who had started the two PR teams’ frenzies says, either oblivious or indifferent to the reactions of the people around them. The other members of the interviewing crew look increasingly horrified, turning to each other and mumbling in fast, panicked tones. Chris and Victor smirk at each other again, and then, Victor moves his arm up from Chris’s waist to wrap around his shoulders.

“I don’t know, Chris,” Victor says, mischievous smile sneaking through as he talks, “ _are_ we gay?” He and Chris turn to each other; they grab each other’s faces and, without any more preface or preamble, start making out.

There’s a flurry of camera flashes and voices, but Chris and Victor ignore it all, lips staying locked even a bit after members of their respective PR teams start calling their names. When they pull away from each other, the managers of their PR teams are staring at the both of them in a mix of irritation and slight shock. Chris’s PR manager says, “Do you know what we’re gonna have to go through to keep that from circulating?”

Chris laughs. “Let it circulate!” he says. His PR manager rolls his eyes and groans. He firmly wraps an arm around Chris’s waist and tugs him along.

“Come on, Chris,” he says, “good _bye_ , Victor.”

“Bye, Vic!” Chris calls, blowing a series of loud, smacking kisses at him.

“Bye, Chris!” Victor yells before his own PR manager starts scolding him.

Chris and Victor don’t pay much attention to what actions their PR teams undertake to keep the videos and pictures of their make out session from reaching the public, but all evidence of it disappears and doesn’t resurface until several years later. (Chris and Victor have been asked before if they were the ones who leaked it—they’ll never tell.)

-

**2030**

Years _after_ these several years later, Victor and Yūri’s kids discover the leaked videos, which is almost entirely Victor’s fault.

Though, some blame can be placed on Yūri too, even though he doesn’t _mean_ to worry his husband when he makes a throwaway comment about the kids discovering the highlight days of Chris N Vic online. He fully intends it to be a joke, but Victor sits straight up in bed, gasping and looking at Yūri in horrified realization.

“They _already_ use the Internet,” he says. He turns his head sharply towards their bedroom door, as if in this way he can hear any actions their two children might be taking to dig up information on his life as a wild young twenty-something. “I have to tell them. Before they _find out_.”

“Victor,” Yūri starts softly, rubbing at his arm and trying to get him to lie back down, “sweetheart,” he trails his fingers lightly down Victor’s back; Victor’s tension dissipates, just the slightest bit, as it always does at Yūri’s touch, “I doubt they’d even find anything unless they specifically went looking for it.”

“Yūri, _of course_ they’d go looking up their dad online!”

“The first thing on Google about you is not that you used to make not-entirely-wise decisions while drunk in your early twenties, Victor.” Victor huffs a breath out of his nose and lies back down; Yūri cuddles into his side, resting his cheek on his shoulder.

“Give me more credit, Yūri,” Victor says, “I wasn’t always drunk when I made my questionable decisions.” Yūri snorts and pokes him in the side, prompting Victor to start tickling him.

The ensuing tickle fight isn’t enough to deter Victor’s train of thought, as in the morning, he sits down he and Yūri’s ten and nine and a half year olds for breakfast and spends about five minutes very suspiciously fiddling with a bag of bread before the kids comment on it (Yūri snickers into his hand), and he has to say what he wants to say.

“Kids,” Victor says, finally putting the bag of bread back in the refrigerator (Yūri’s hand is doing very little to conceal his giggles now), “you know how your dad and I used to be professional figure skaters?” They nod. “Well, I just wanted you two to know that, when we were younger, your uncle Chris and I made some not so smart decisions,” Victor winces at his wording—Yūri keeps his mouth shut because he’s a gracious husband, “and…I wanted to tell you before you run across it online, or something similar.” Both children look thoroughly confused.

The younger of the two opens his mouth to speak, and his sister kicks him under the table. He turns to look at her, and they make a series of expressions at each other before they reach some sort of silent sibling consensus and turn back away from each other. Yūri and Victor stare at the both of them. “I don’t know what just happened here, and I don’t know if I like it,” Victor says. His children put on their best expressions of innocence.

It’s a few days later when Victor happens to be at the store that Yūri hears a shout and an, “Oh my god!” from the older of his two children’s room; she then calls for her six-month-younger brother, yelling that he has to come see this. Yūri, more than just mildly suspicious, comes too.

“Is that _Dad_?” Yūri hears as he rounds the corner to his daughter’s room, and when he sticks his head through the door, the tablet positioned in front of his two children is suddenly, forcefully turned off and thrown across the bed. “Oh, come on, it isn’t _that_ bad—even if it is gross,” his son says, grabbing the tablet and turning it on again, “and Dad’s probably seen it already anyway.”

“What are you two watching?” Yūri asks.

“Um. Nothing?” his daughter tries.

“It’s just a video of Dad and Uncle Chris making out,” Yūri’s son says, and while his sister tries to shoot him a glare, she can’t help laughing in bursts of short, poorly concealed giggles. For a moment, Yūri doesn’t really know what to do.

After a bit of thought, he says, “Well, scooch over,” figuring that it really can’t do _that_ much harm. The kids break out into bright smiles and laughter.

Scooching over, the kids yell out things like, “Look at how young Dad and Uncle Chris were!” and “This was before you knew them, right?” Yūri answers their questions and responds to their comments to the best of his ability, noting how amused they are with a slight smile.

Victor comes home from the store to find his family sitting on a bed together watching a video of him drunkenly making out with his best friend at 23, all of them judging him together. The way that his daughter is strewn half-on and half-off her bed in unabashed laughter is enough to abate the majority of any of the negative emotions he might feel towards the scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WATCH ME SIDESTEP NAMING THE VICTŪRI BABIES
> 
> bonus points headcanons: Victor and Yūri adopt their first kid when they're 32 and 28, respectively. She's about 1 to 1 and a half. They adopt their second kid a few years later, and he's about 4 or 5 at the time
> 
> also: Christophe Giacometti, a vegan??? Me, projecting??? never
> 
> EDIT: I forgot to mention something! This fic takes place in the canonverse, which doesn't exhibit the same kinds of prejudice that our world does. The news reporters are more shocked about how bluntly the one reporter asks the question (and Chris N Vic's PR teams have to go through such an effort of making sure the pictures and videos don't get out bc there are ALREADY rumors that the two of them are dating)


	5. "'Getting arrested is only cute once'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had. Trouble. figuring out how I wanted to lay out this chapter. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it a few times, actually (waking up in the middle of the night thinking about writing isn't an unusual thing for me--thinking about the structure of a chapter though? that is). I couldn't decide what order I wanted things in or even WHAT things I wanted to put in!
> 
> This chapter is more of a look at Victor
> 
> I should have the final number of chapters for you all when next chapter is published!
> 
> Also: remind me never to write anything again that requires me to look up wind patterns in St. Petersburg (in general but especially wind patterns in St. Petersburg in the past)

**Late December, 2011**

Chris and Victor could not, even later, not sleep deprived and half deranged by the weight of their eyelids and the cold, silent, electric feeling of night, part _this_ and _that_ and disentangle things enough to explain to anyone _why_ going to a park in the middle of the night seemed like a good idea to them, but that’s what they do nonetheless.

Looking back through a less affected eye, the source of the idea can probably be traced back to bouts of mutual insomnia—Chris and Victor both finding themselves sitting in Chris’s kitchen with mugs of hot chocolate (Victor is too tired to be skeptical of the combination of vegan hot chocolate mix and soy milk) in the truly ugly early hours of the morning. The decision to go out into the cold after they put their mugs in the sink is less easily explained; though, there are some sleepy murmurs about walking it or freezing it off.

They’ve been walking together with linked hands—partly because it’s _dark_ and _scary_ and partly just because they can—since they first got to the park, stumbling out of their seats after Chris had driven them there in a dubious state of alertness and consciousness (his eyelids tended to flutter quite suspiciously and he would forget how to control his lights each time he had to change them), using their phones as flashlights in their free hands. “No one’s _here_ ,” Victor announces for the third time, “isn’t that _weird_ , Chris?” He looks all around, as if someone else will suddenly appear.

“Yes,” Chris answers him, messily pressing his lips against his cheek.

They walk a few steps further before Victor lets out a loud gasp and tugs sharply on Chris’s hand, tugging him along as he turns and walks to the left. “A _bench_!” Victor yells, like he’s never seen one before. He climbs onto its seat, rising to his full height and striking a pose. He lets out an indistinct yell, losing the pose and spreading his arms out wide. Chris walks over and sits next to him, watching in silence as Victor stands with his arms out, eyes slipping closed and hair lightly moving with the wind. Opening his eyes, Victor says, “Sometimes, I feel like I’m on top of the world.” Chris hums at him.

“Do you?” he asks, feeling, perhaps, less bitter at what Victor’s alluding to than he ought to or he would in another situation. Victor hums in response, an echo of Chris a few moments earlier.

Victor stands a bit longer before deciding to climb down; his descent is less graceful than his ascent, and he slides halfway into Chris’s lap with a slightly overshot movement of his leg. Instead of following his initial plan of sitting next to Chris, he settles himself fully into his lap, wiggling until he’s resting less precariously across his thighs and then leaning back against his chest. Chris laughs a little—softly—, and Victor feels it as a slight rumble against his shoulder. He looks up and watches Chris’s face. He slides his hands onto Chris’s cheeks.

“You’re my best friend; did you know that, Chris?” Victor says, tugging on his cheek a little.

“I did,” Chris responds, and Victor moves just a few inches closer to kiss him.

They spend some time making out in the not-quite-pitch darkness, their phones turned off and the streetlamps too close. Victor slides his fingers up Chris’s shirt, instantly warmed from the cold by the skin covered in three layers of clothing. Chris hisses a little against his mouth at the cold touch, reaching to wrap his fingers around Victor’s forearms. “Your hands are so freezing all the time,” he says, “I don’t think you have any blood in them.”

Chris and Victor kiss some more and then pull apart again, Chris squeezing his fingers in a pattern against Victor’s forearms. Victor trails his hands up from Chris’s stomach to his nipples, rubbing with his fingers in a motion that makes Chris take in a sharp breath. “I don’t know how you ever get your hands warm enough to jerk anyone.”

“That’s what I’ve got my hands up here for,” Victor says, licking at Chris’s lips.

“Is _that_ the reason?” Chris asks. Victor tweaks his nipple and he shivers.

“ _Well_ ….”

Chris takes his hands away from Victor’s forearms and moves them down to undo the zipper on Victor’s jeans; he brushes his fingers over Victor’s dick, and whatever spell the dark isolation of a park at night in winter has on Victor’s brain discharges, and he’s left with an unfortunate sense of sense. Victor hisses and groans. “Chris,” he says, and he hates the word as soon as it slips out of his mouth.

“Mmm?” Chris hums, ghosting, _ghosting_ fingertips, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just let it go on….

No. Victor has to say this. “We can’t do this right now.”

“Oh. Why?” Chris asks, withdrawing his hands.

“Getting arrested is only cute once, Chris.”

-

**Mid to Late February, 2012**

Not a bit of the tossing and turning helps.

Yakov has been awake for hours trying to sleep to no avail; he doesn’t really know what it is keeping him from sleep, but he has this strange feeling of foreboding that he really can’t place whatsoever. Tiredly, he thinks it might have something to do with the wind.

St. Petersburg normally has light winds, only faintly noticeable. Tonight, though, bursts of air go rushing past Yakov’s windows, causing whistles and bangs and thuds. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that on the other rare occasions when the winds in St. Petersburg have been beyond a faint breeze at night, Yakov _hasn’t_ had trouble sleeping, so he brushes the thought off. He rolls over, checks his phone, squints against the screen’s light, and puts it back down once he sees that he has no new messages. He hates that his skaters have gotten him into habits like this, but in his defense, he needs to be more capable with a phone than the average person his age to keep track of his skaters, who are, frankly, usually causing some sort of trouble. _Especially_ at night. _Especially_ Victor Nikiforov.

(Even if he is—not-so-secretly—Yakov’s favorite.)

It’s around two in the morning (he knows because he checks his loathsome smartphone) when Yakov hears a banging that is much too loud and insistent to be that of the wind.

If it’s Victor Nikiforov, the boy is dead. (Even if he is Yakov’s favorite).

The knocking, which had stopped briefly, starts up again with even more force and insistence, and Yakov stares at the ceiling from his bed and contemplates death. He sighs after only a few moments of self-pity and takes up the arduous task of pushing himself up from bed, sitting and then standing despite the creaking, groaning protests of his joints (more of them pop each time, Yakov swears).

The knocking continues for the entire slow, dragging way Yakov makes across his house and doesn’t stop until he wrenches his door open, sending the person behind it stumbling forward, nearly falling. Yakov is a bit more shocked than he should be to see that it’s Christophe Giacometti, a billowing bathrobe on him like some sad excuse for a coat.

Yakov says nothing. Chris says nothing. They stare at each other for a while, both surprised at the sight in front of them.

“You’re not Victor,” Chris says finally.

“ _Vitya?_ ” Yakov asks, even more surprised. Chris stares at him blankly, and Yakov sighs. “Christophe, what are you doing in Russia?”

“I’m here to visit Victor! I took a plane and thought I’d surprise him. I thought this was his address.” Chris reaches into the pocket of his bathrobe and pulls out a piece of paper; he says, “I have it on my phone, but it was getting hard to read so I wrote it down.” Yakov narrows his eyes at him.

“Are you drunk?” Yakov asks, snatching the paper out of Chris’s hand and looking at it. It’s his address in a scrawled, messy handwriting that offers not even the slightest hint of sobriety. Yakov sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose; Christophe and Victor _both_ are goddamn messy excuses for human beings, and yet…. “Come inside,” Yakov says, and if anyone asks later, he can blame his softness on the late hour or explain it away _completely rationally_ by saying that Christophe Giacometti is his star skater’s best friend and would cause him to stop skating as well if he died out in a ditch somewhere in St. Petersburg, “I’ll call Vitya.”

Yakov lets Chris in before him and falters a bit at the sight of the back of his bathrobe—the word ‘Vic’ across one side of his butt and half of an ‘N’ near his side. He doesn’t ask. Chris stands in the middle of the hallway for a bit before Yakov leads him into his living room and makes him sit on the couch. He goes into the kitchen to call Victor, mostly because he doesn’t really know what to do with himself around Chris in a casual setting, much less a drunken Chris.

Victor answers almost immediately when Yakov calls, making him suspect that he didn’t catch him sleeping. It’s something he _should_ scold him for, but Yakov currently has a drunken and confused Christophe Giacometti sitting on his couch, so Victor’s poor sleeping habits can go unmentioned for the moment. Victor sounds entirely too chipper for such an early hour; Yakov resents him for it. “Vitya,” Yakov says after Victor greets him, “come pick up Christophe Giacometti.”

“What? Is he there?” Victor asks.

“Yes! He’s at my house right now, drunk and wearing a bathrobe!” Yakov can hear Victor snicker over the line, which only serves to make him angrier, “Come get him, Vitya, before I kick him out and let him sleep on the street for the night!”

“Alright, alright, yes, yes, Yakov, I’ll come get him. Goodbye!” Yakov hangs up the phone.

Victor comes by minutes later, brightening up immediately when he sees Chris and taking him out to his car, smiling and laughing with him all the while. Yakov laments upon the fact that he has a heart.

-

**Late January, 2014**

Yakov claims no keys or leash to the whirling, stormy desolation inside Victor’s mind: there are certain days when Victor seems thoroughly unlike himself, losing precision and luster in all of his jumps, skating aimlessly around the rink for minutes at a time, and Yakov is powerless to bring him out of it. It’s unlike Georgi—whose drama can be alleviated by even the most brash and unpracticed attempts at comfort—or Mila—who usually takes power from negative emotions during practice—or Yuri—who has his grandfather to deal with him on worse days. Victor is untouchable, even in this.

The third Grand Prix gold medal, Yakov thinks, is the knot in Victor’s noose—the visible one, anyway (like he’s said, Victor’s personal gloom is not something he is particularly adept at grappling or grasping). There’s something different in Victor’s eyes—a loss of light—, and something about the way he skates seems stale and nearly frigid. It’s during this year that Yakov thinks he gains the most of his wrinkles, possibly etched there by the constant curl of his lips and furrow of his brow.

And it’s during this year that Christophe Giacometti comes to his rink for the first and only time.

Victor’s steps really begin to slow that year after the European Championships: another gold to add to his collection, another drop into the wide, still pool of realization. Victor’s once occasional and fleeting bursts of sadness intensify in frequency and duration, and he can often be found slumped over the side of the rink rather than practicing, full of contemplation after a difficult jump or step sequence. He constantly questions himself, his theme, his style, his _life_ , and Yakov, for all he can refine programs and jumps to the most minute of details, has no idea what to do with Victor’s dejection and the weight-of-the-world questions it brings—his fears that he’s reached a stagnant point at the top of the world, that he has no place to reach or to go, that he will never _not_ be lonely and sad. Yakov has no idea what to say to any of it.

He has more of an idea of what to say when he spots Christophe Giacometti sneaking around in the seats of his rink, crouched down and nearly crawling to avoid being seen. Victor is skating around and around the rink, staring off into space, while Yakov’s other skaters try to practice their jumps without barreling into him; Yakov only sees Chris because he happens to turn his head at the very moment he trips and lands across the seats. He opens his mouth to yell at him, but Chris notices his gaze and raises a finger to his lips before resuming his crouched gait. Letting out a forceful breath through his nose, Yakov decides to let him go; the only person he’d be here to bother is Victor anyway, and he’s close to useless in terms of skating in his current state. Chris makes his way down to the barrier, waving at Yakov and then winking at him before peaking into the rink and then quickly taking off his skate guards (an explanation for the tripping) and moving onto the rink once Victor is turned away from him.

He skates over to Victor silently until he’s only a few feet away, calling out, “How are _you_ , Victor?” emphasizing the word ‘you’ by wrapping his arms around his friend’s shoulders. Victor jumps and turns around to look behind him, blinking in surprise.

“Chris,” Victor says, but it lacks all the excitement it usually does, as Yakov has heard it. Yakov can’t see Chris’s face from his angle, but he knows he must be frowning.

“I knew you weren’t feeling well,” Chris says softly, just within the range of Yakov’s hearing. The rest of the conversation is too quiet for him to hear, but seeing Victor’s expressions is enough for him to guess what’s said.

“I never told you,” Victor says.

In a tone near a whisper, Chris says, “Call it a best friend’s intuition.” He smiles at him, and Victor’s bottom lip quivers, just the slightest bit. “How about I get you out of this rink?”

Victor sighs, eyes sweeping across the room. “Chris—thanks—, but…I don’t think it’ll…help.” Chris frowns.

“Victor,” he puts his hands on his shoulders, gets him to look him in the eyes, “it’s okay that you feel this way. You don’t have to deal with it alone.” Victor grips one of Chris’s arms with both of his hands, firm and unrelenting.

“Okay,” Victor says after a bit of silence.

“Good,” Chris says, linking a hand with Victor’s, “I knew I didn’t look up things to do in St. Petersburg for nothing.”

From across the room, Yakov watches as Victor smiles the tiniest smile, the first he’s seen in a while. He’s suddenly hit by a wave of realization, one that makes the name ‘Christophe Giacometti’ soften and take a different meaning in his head; it’s _him_ , after all, who’s making Victor smile. _Him_ who flew across the continent for Victor’s sake. _Him_ who offers something to Victor that Yakov just…can’t.

“Is it alright with you if I steal your charge for a bit, Coach Yakov?” Chris calls, even as he’s slipping on his skate guards and walking away. Yakov’s reply doesn’t come immediately, and Chris turns around to look back at him, surprised and a bit concerned.

“…Just don’t get into anything too terrible,” Yakov says finally, very pointedly not looking in Chris’s direction. Chris lets out a soft gasp, and Yakov turns his head to look at him; he almost wishes he hadn’t for the touched, mushy expression on Chris’s face. They lock eyes, and Yakov nods at him before turning back to pay attention to his other skaters.

-

**Early December, 2010**

There’s the familiar sound of ice-skate firmly landing against ice—Victor landing a near perfect quad. The sound is followed by a whoop, which isn’t familiar; Chris is watching Victor’s movements with a small smile on his face, being encouraging whenever he can. Usually, Victor’s perfect quads are followed by no sound whatsoever, the narrowed eyes of other skaters around him, thoughts of _how_ to beat someone who can do jumps like these. No one ever _cheers_ for Victor Nikiforov. No one who isn’t a member of the audience or a fellow Russian skater, anyway. Yakov’s eyes flicker to Christophe Giacometti.

He watches as his protégé abandons practicing his programs in favor of skating around the practice rink a bit too loose-limbed and casual for his liking, sometimes skating around Chris and getting particularly handsy with him. In any other circumstance, he’d yell at Victor to stop wasting his own time, but ever since Vancouver, he’s been watching interactions between Chris and Victor carefully, trying to come to a conclusion on _how_ , exactly, they’ll work together once the newness of their friendship has worn away.

A voice to his right catches his attention before a presence does. “How are you, Yakov?” the voice calls out. It’s Josef Karpisek. Yakov wonders if he has similar thoughts on his mind.

Yakov has spoken to Josef exactly once before, and that was when they were picking up their respective figure skaters from a Vancouver jail. Then, they’d only exchanged brief words at the door as Josef walked out with Chris and Yakov walked in to get Victor, but it’d been enough to learn each other’s names and gain impressions of their skaters and each other. “Josef,” Yakov acknowledges, rather than answering his question. He eyes the man through his peripheral vision.

“It appears our boys have become fast friends, haven’t they?” Yakov lets out a low hum. “Listen, I know Chris can be a little in your face, but he really is a sweetheart, I promise you.”

“I don’t mean to question your skater’s character, Josef,” Yakov starts ( _That would be hypocritical_ ), “I’m just…cautious about his presence around Vitya. You know what kind of trouble they get into together.” Josef purses his lips.

In the rink, Chris and Victor have gone back to practicing their routines, though only a moment earlier they had been doing half-assed little spins, blowing each other kisses, and patting each other’s asses as they’d gone skating by. “I’m not the one who’s his coach, but Yakov, can you tell me the last time Victor Nikiforov had a genuine friend?”

“What’s your point, Karpisek?” Yakov asks, eyes narrowing. He really can’t tell him: the closest he might count are Victor’s rink mates.

“I just think this might be good for them is all,” Josef says, raising his hands in the air and starting to back away, “I’ll leave you to your coaching, Yakov.”

Yakov turns his eyes back to the rink to see Victor taking a moment out of his practice to clap and whistle after Chris lands a quad. He lets them be friendly with each other for a bit before telling Victor to get back to practicing, which Victor does only after melodramatically rolling his eyes and blowing a kiss at Chris.

There _has_ been something a bit more eased about Victor—his skating and his personality—ever since Vancouver that only seems to be growing. Yakov will give Josef that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus points headcanons: of /course/ Chris N Vic have matching bathrobes. Of course. (Victor's says Chris and half of the N and Chris's says Vic and the other half of the N). Also, if you ever ask Chris N Vic if they've ever fucked, the answer will be a solid ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ;)


	6. A Hospital Visit and a Hotel Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a final number of chapters now! Two more to go, thank you so much everyone <3
> 
> We see Victor winning gold in 2006 at the European Championships, but his Grand Prix winning streak starts in 2010, so part of this chapter tries to bridge that gap while still keeping it Chris N Vic

**Late March, 2013**

“Congratulations on skipping all of the international competitions with this,” Victor says, tossing a bouquet of flowers and a box of vegan chocolate onto Chris as he walks into the hospital room. He points at the chocolate; “I hope you know that I went through hell to get those,” he adds.

Chris gasps at the vegan chocolate, ripping the box open and gazing at the chocolates and their flavors for a few seconds before popping one in his mouth. “I think you got me these to ensure I stay out of commission,” he says, chocolate wedged into the hollow of his cheek.

“I would’ve gotten them closer to a competition if that was the case.”

Victor throws his bag down and sits in the chair next to Chris’s bed, letting out a breath and brushing his hair away from his eyes. This is the first time he can remember in the past few hours that his heart rate hasn’t been speeding far ahead of his feet, his taxi, his plane. “Are you okay?” he asks, after a beat.

Chris stretches himself out in the bed, eating one last piece of chocolate before putting the lid back on the box and sliding it away from him (he has to show _some_ athletic discretion). His head’s sore—there’s a bruise somewhere, hidden by his hair—, and there are bandages wrapped around his right foot and ankle, discouraging him from putting weight on them. “I don’t have a concussion, and I didn’t fracture any bones in my foot or ankle.”

“If you knock Chris Giacometti down, he’ll just get back up again, hmm?”

Chris snorts at him. “It doesn’t count if I knock myself down.”

“What _did_ happen, Chris?”

“I twisted my ankle badly and hit my h—”

“ _Specifically_.” Chris snorts, and Victor’s begrudging smile tells him all he needs to know.

“I didn’t land a quad right and almost cracked my skull open. The typical injured figure skater’s plight.” Chris rolls his shoulders back. “Pretty much the same thing that happened to you in 2008, right? I don’t know if you landed on your head, though. Did you?”

“I didn’t. I _did_ fracture a bone in my ankle, though.” Victor has started to relax now that he’s seen that Chris isn’t bleeding out on an operating table in a Swiss hospital; the text he’d gotten from Josef had only vaguely outlined that Chris was hurt, and Victor wasn’t about to waste any time asking questions. “Why’ve they got you here, then, if you don’t have a concussion or any bone or muscle damage?”

“They’re just monitoring me,” Chris says, “I can leave tomorrow morning if everything goes well.”

Victor nods and lets his eyes focus on a point he isn’t focusing on. He still feels the slight effects of being airborne then brought back down to Earth—the slightly stretched out feeling in all of his limbs like he’s made of elastic. Victor laughs and halfway buries his head in his hands. “Tell Josef he doesn’t need to make me think you’re dead to get me to come visit you in the hospital.” The comment makes Chris take pause.

“If you thought I was dead, why did you get me chocolate and flowers?”

Victor stares at the chocolate and flowers laid across Chris’s bed. “That’s a good question,” he says. Chris shifts the things on his bed around so that there’s a space open next to him. He pats it.

As Victor comes to sit next to him, Chris says, “Be careful with my leg.”

Climbing up onto the bed with Chris, Victor lies next to him, touching shoulders. In 2008, Victor had cussed himself blue in the face while getting his ankle bandaged to fix his fracture; he had been roughly brought down from what looked like the start of a winning streak, and while he limped and hobbled around and tried to heal as fast as humanly possible, his only company had been that of Bruiser, occasionally Yakov, and occasionally some physical therapists. Hearing anything about _any_ of the competitions he could have been a part of had he not miscalculated this _one_ jump in _just_ the wrong way made him frustrated and angry, and he felt less lonely as much as terribly cooped up and restrained.

Chris seems calmer than he did in that situation. Then again, Chris _is_ older and less badly injured than Victor was _and_ it’s between international competitions, but Victor thought he might have noticed a certain tension leave some part of Chris when walked in—maybe a slight loosening of his shoulders. To fill up the silence, Chris turns his upper body a little bit so he can wrap an arm around Victor and says, “I’m glad you came to see me—all the way from Russia, too. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

“You’re in the hospital! Of course I’d come see you.”

Chris nestles his head against Victor’s shoulder. “Thanks, Victor,” he says, squeezing him a little tighter.

Chris isn’t used to having friends who would fly across multiple countries to come and see him on a minute’s notice. Stépha does that, of course (she’d come bursting in a few hours earlier), but she’s his sister and, therefore, doesn’t count. He and Victor’s friendship is special— _so_ special; he wonders how either of them would be without it.

Victor kisses him on the top of the head and thinks about how lucky he is to have a friend. A friend who—thankfully—isn’t too banged up by his fall.

-

**Early December, 2015**

It really is typical that Victor would lock himself in his hotel room. It’s very rare that _anyone_ (especially those who medal) participating in the Grand Prix gets any sleep after competing, but Victor had brushed off interviews early and slunk away from all offers of post-competition partying or drinking to do just that. He’s been alone in his room for several hours before Chris gets a chance to come and talk to him.

The hotel is mostly deserted and silent when Chris comes by; people are either sleeping or still out partying, and Chris, who had left a skaters’ outing at the bar early (forgoing any drinks), feels almost as if he’s the only one around or awake to see it. He knocks on Victor’s door.

In his room, Victor, who’s asleep, doesn’t answer the door, which Chris had been expecting. He knocks a few more times, louder, and then calls, hoping Victor fell asleep with the sound still on his phone. The faint sound of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” drifts through the door, followed by several thuds—presumably from Victor trying to grab his phone. Victor answers the phone with a drawn-out groan.

“Let me in,” Chris says. Victor groans again. “Victor.” A minute or so later, Victor opens the door.

Victor is fully clothed when he opens the door, his hair and clothes mussed and a tired look in his eyes. There was a time when Victor would be ecstatic and running all across the Grand Prix host city in light of winning a gold medal—the medal probably still wrapped around his neck as he went—, but that Victor is trapped a few years in the past. Chris looks him up and down, taking in how ragged he looks. He gently nudges him aside to walk into the room.

He suddenly remembers that he doesn’t really have a plan.

“What’s…” a sigh, “wrong, Victor?” he tries.

Victor shuts the door behind him and flops onto his bed. He looks at Chris. “Everything I do is kind of pointless, isn’t it? I don’t surprise anyone anymore. I would’ve surprised people if I _hadn’t_ won tonight, and what’s the point of competing if not to win?” Chris sits next to him and runs a hand through his hair. “What am I supposed to do after this year?” he asks.

“You always ask that,” Chris says with a frown—‘always’ meaning the past two years or so.

“I know I do,” Victor says, closing his eyes. “You didn’t have to leave the bar for me, you know.”

“I wanted to.”

Victor shifts a little on the bed. “How mad do you think Yakov would get if I didn’t go to the banquet this year?”

“I don’t think that would be very good for his health, Victor.” Victor sighs; Chris starts to poke at his cheek.

“Don’t get too worried about me, Chris: I have to act happy for Yuri and Mila at the very least, anyway. They’re so _young_. Sometimes I feel like I don’t remember ever being that young. They still have so much inspiration.”

“You’ll get over this slump, Victor. I know you will.” Victor sighs and shrugs as much as he can in his position on the bed. “How about I stay in here with you for the rest of the night?” Chris asks. Victor tells him he can use his toothbrush.

In the same very hotel, Katsuki Yūri sleeps a dreamless, disappointed sleep, and neither he nor Victor knows what’s going to happen in a few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus points headcanon: chris n vic will drop everything for each other in most situations, but I guess we've already seen a lot of that, haven't we?


	7. "'It's a good look on you'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Covering the moment from the show most obviously in need of Chris N Vic-ifying!

**Early December, 2016**

“I’m surprised you didn’t immediately start stripping when you came by the pool,” Victor says, sipping at his drink. Beside him, Chris stretches out on his pool chair, all ease and relaxation. He’s been this way ever since he got to Barcelona, which is more than can be said of his fellow competitors. Grand Prix Finals are well and familiar to him now, while, even under the guise of ‘relaxing’ before the competition, all the other competitors are jittery, up and wandering and exploring, placing their feet out into Barcelona: even Yūri (fast asleep as of now) will be up to wander when he finally comes into wakefulness. Chris, lying nearly naked in a pool chair, idly tells a different story.

“You’re dating Yūri now. I didn’t want to impose.” Victor opens his mouth, ‘ _of course you wouldn’t have been imposing_ ’, ready on his lips before considering that he hasn’t talked to Yūri about any of _this_ and doesn’t know how he would feel. He closes his mouth, thinks more on his response, and tries again.

“You pole danced with him basically naked at last year’s banquet.”

“I also grabbed his ass before the Cup of China when he _wasn’t_ fling-himself-at-Victor-Nikiforov-and-ask-him-to-be-his-coach drunk, and he nearly had a heart attack. He’s also very protective of you, Victor, which is fully understandable. You’re a great catch.” Chris sips his drink.

“ _Yūri’s_ the great catch, Chris, he’s just so,” Victor lets out a breathy sigh, “ _wonderful_ —I can’t describe it. The other day he and Makka were out playing in the leaves and Makka had two leaves tangled onto his ears like earrings and Yūri started laughing, and _Chris_ , I was just…breathless.”

Chris turns his head to look at Victor, who’s looking straight ahead with a soft expression entirely characterized by love. It makes something pang in Chris’s chest that is both happy and sad; he remembers the Victor of a few years ago, brazen and bored and purposeless aside from a goal of triumph diminishing in fervor with each passing year, a Victor that he misses with a wistful wish for youthfulness but otherwise wishes good riddance. The Victor of _now_ is in love, and having this revelation, here in a pool in Barcelona, is a moment that Chris will hold very close to his heart in forthcoming years. “I’m happy for you, Victor,” Chris says softly. Victor sighs again, acknowledging Chris’s words.

Victor turns his head so that he’s looking back at Chris, both of them meeting eyes. “You’re my best friend, Chris,” Victor says, “and thank you for thinking about Yūri. I haven’t really talked to him about a lot of _this_ ,” he makes a gesture, “and you’re right.”

“Oh, what’s that I hear?” Chris asks, dramatically looking all around as if he’s trying to find the source of the sound, “Are you telling me that young Katsuki Yūri doesn’t know that his boyfriend went to jail one fateful day almost seven years ago?”

“Well,” Victor says, “if he does it’s not because I told him.”

“Nice to see you’re still as messy as ever, Victor,” Chris says.

“Don’t act like you weren’t in the cell across from me!”

Chris and Victor spend a bit more time lounging in comfortable silence. After a while, Victor gets up, wrapping a towel around his shoulders and hugging his hands close to his chest. He says, “Well, I’ve gotta go check on my sleeping beauty up in our room. You wanna come along?” Chris cocks his head at him, and Victor clarifies, “He’s gonna need something to distract him from his nerves today.”

“Helping the competition, hmm?” Chris asks. If Victor thought he was serious in any capacity whatsoever, he’d send him a hurt look. “I’m kidding—of course I’ll come along.”

While Chris had thought to bring a robe with him to the pool and puts it on as he walks through the hotel to Victor and Yūri’s room, Victor hadn’t had as much forethought, and he walks shivering with his towel. Chris bumps him with his hip. “You really like Yūri, huh?”

Victor pauses, dripping pool water onto the hotel’s carpet. “Chris,” he says, taking a moment to piece together what he wants to say, trying to figure out if he even _can_ transcribe it into words, “he’s showed me _so much_ of what I was missing.”

Chris has noticed, of course. The smile on his friend’s face is unmissable and unmistakable, and he has never seen him, at any point, any less urgent and eager to move. He had once watched Victor do pushups in his living room even after he had sworn to make the day a lazy Saturday and lasted a good two hours watching T.V on the couch with Chris before the bouncing in his knee became too much and he had to get up and move, all while Fifi basked on the windowsill next to him in the sunlight. Victor had seemed a lot like that, instead, in the pool.

“It seems my dear friend Victor is melting,” Chris says.

“You think so?”

“Yes—but maybe ‘melting’ is the wrong word. I think thawing would fit better. It’s a good look on you, Victor,” Chris says, knocking his and Victor’s shoulders. Victor beams.

The decision to hop onto Yūri when they find him still lying in bed is mutual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus points headcanons: Yūri is pretty. offput by Chris N Vic, at least at first. he also feels bad that he's offput by it, but a really touchy-feely somewhat sexual friendship like Chris N Vic have is kind of a foreign concept to him, and seeing it in relation to his fiancé just. takes some getting used to


	8. "buy better laws of physics"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, my friends!
> 
> The delay in me producing this chapter mainly had to do with me having a lot to do in school these past few weeks and, y'know, having a birthday (the author of Pushing Platonic is now 18 years old!) (also fun fact I share a birthday with our very own Christophe Giacometti!!! granted we are 8 years apart ;P) also I think I was pushing this off a bit because I didn't want Push Plat to end, haha
> 
> You've all been a wonderful, wonderful reader base and I've had so much fun writing Push Plat. Enjoy the last chapter!
> 
> (also, note: Fr. is the 'symbol' [bc there. rly isn't one] for Swiss francs)
> 
> (also ALSO chris is on a plane in the first part and therefore the text times r. kinda wonky but just. bear w/ me and we're gonna say they're in central European time)

**2021**

Chris can feel the way the unassuming, pseudo-time traveling trip from west to east drags at him even as it happens. There was a time when he could hop from place to place, up and down the earth wherever his fancy struck him and took him, seemingly able to live without sleep. Now, 30 and retired from his days of pushing his body to the pinnacle of athleticism, he feels a tangible strain—one that makes him feel his age and more anywhere he’s bent, stretched, and broken his skin a few too many times.

In his pocket, his phone buzzes, and neither his aches nor his fatigue matter because his best friend has been texting him pictures of his new baby for the past two weeks.

**chris [9:32 PM]:** I know how much you love her and want to show her to everyone but I’m already on my way to see her!!!  
**vic [9:32 PM]:** I know!!! my darling baby girl thinks her uncle chris needs to get here faster. use ur Fr. buy better laws of physics  
**chris [9:33 PM]** : what???  
**vic** **[9:34 PM]** : i’m a new father, leave me be

Chris smiles at his phone and slips it back into his pocket where it stays quiet—meaning Victor doesn’t bother him anymore—for the rest of his flight to Japan. It sometimes goes through his mind that he’s going to see Victor’s _daughter_ as he bides his time by looking out his window, and he remembers when they met in 2010, neither of them _remotely_ ready to be parents—going to _jail_ , even, because of Victor’s bad drunken decisions—and Katsuki Yūri was a teenager watching his future husband from afar through a television screen. Now, Victor and Yūri have been parents for a month, finally loosening their grip enough to let other people come and see their child. (Mari’s been saying that she’s been reaching up at people’s phones, trying to escape her isolation).

Chris calls a taxi to take him to Victor and Yūri’s house once he lands but is too busy in his own mind to remember most of the drive. He feels a strange sort of anxiety mixed with anticipation as he rings the doorbell, soon greeted by a mildly disheveled looking Yūri. “Victor’s in the nursery,” Yūri says instead of offering any sort of greeting, “he wanted to have you ‘come in and see him holding our baby—like a real dad’.” Yūri fondly rolls his eyes and moves away from the doorway, letting Chris inside.

He can see the typical array of ‘new child in the house’ paraphernalia all around, blankets and baby clothes strewn across furniture and cleaners and heaters and humidifiers across almost every surface. “Congratulations again,” Chris tells Yūri.

“Thank you,” Yūri says, smiling in that small, bashful way he’s never really lost even after Victor came into his life and leaning up against the staircase, “I thought I was always overflowing with love before, but now….” He trails off, sighing happily. Yūri looks happier—more comfortable—than the last time Chris saw him, but that’s been the case since 2016. He taps Chris’s shoulder as he brushes by. “Don’t keep my husband waiting.”

He has to stop right outside of the door to the nursery once he gets up the stairs. This is Victor’s life now—and his too, by proxy. What are you supposed to think before meeting your best friend’s baby?

Chris decides that he’s never been one for philosophizing and opens the door.

His eyes are immediately drawn to Victor and his baby—he can’t even take in what the room looks like. Victor has the softest, _softest_ smile on his face, gently rocking his baby girl. He hears Chris step in and turns his head, his smile losing some of its softness but not a bit of its honesty or brightness.

Chris remembers what he said to Victor at a pool in Barcelona back when he and Yūri had first started dating. “Hi, Dad Victor,” Chris says in reference to a year long gone, matching his smile.

He watches as plump, happy tears well in Victor’s eyes and roll down his cheeks, his lower lip wobbling in the sturdiest smile Chris has ever seen.

“Thank you, Chris,” Victor says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus points headcanon: chris and phichit team up to become the ultimate Cool Uncle Duo. chris has the funds and phichit has the Cool Uncle Agenda
> 
> This is the end of Push Plat! Thanks so much for sticking around everyone. If I get some more Chris N Vic ideas I might make this a series and take on some oneshots but we'll see


End file.
